“You’re giving up? They only sent one back. The others are doing something. They have to be.”
“No,” she said, not raising her head. There was a bit of blood slowly making its way down a lock of hair at the side of her head, flowing from a scalp wound. “I’m accepting facts. We’re novices. There’s at least three, four major players aligned against us. If we have a chance, it’s in you leaving, right now. Cut off the serpent’s head, and maybe the body will follow. And in case it doesn’t work out that way… let us say our damn goodbyes.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find words.
“Oh, I can feel their fear,” the diary girl said, hugging herself as much as she hugged the diary.
“It was nice to meet you,” Tiff said. “And if that sounds really lame, it’s because I’m a bit lame. But when you showed up stuff started making sense. I… wish I’d gotten to know you better, since our second meeting, and that I could have returned the favor, helping you make sense of stuff.”
I very nearly opened my mouth to tell her she could. To ask for the hint, the tidbit of information that would help me fill in the blanks.
But doing that would be like admitting that their situation was this dire.
“…But I can’t,” she said. “I really like your tattoos, you know? Not the scary bit but… I wish I could’ve known the you that you would’ve been, and that I could’ve been that you, too.”
Ty had said his piece, in his roundabout way. Asking me to look after Evan. Tiff had spoken from the heart. And Alexis…
Alexis’ head hung. She didn’t move. Blood pooled on the floor where her chin hung forward, dripping off the tip of her nose and chin, and off the one lock of hair beneath the open cut.
“Alexis?” Ty said.
“The lady isn’t dead,” the diary girl said. “I can feel her fear. It’s sharper now.”
The diary girl crossed the library, heading straight for Alexis. Tyler tensed, taking a half-step forward, and the diary girl flared, paper shuffling rapidly, the edges all facing him.
She did the same thing as she drew closer to Alexis than she was to Ty. I had a close-up of the trick, the individual pages moving with a will of their own.
I didn’t have time to think about it.
I lunged through the mirror, glass breaking and cutting my flesh. Fragments danced off my skin on their way to the ground. A short-lived body in the real world, blind, with only seconds to act.
With the Hyena, I gutted the diary girl. Unable to see, I still felt her collapse against me, her form holding for only a second before the papers began to slide apart.
Would she reform?
I couldn’t let her.
The blade of the Hyena pointed down, I thrust down, aiming for her back.
She muttered something incomprehensible as I destroyed her spine.
I was losing my footing, and there was little that remained in the house. No mirrors, no reflections.
I reached out, grasping, and I found the book.
The Hyena, gripped by my other hand, speared the cover of still-supple flesh. Stabbed right through the middle.
“That’ll do,” I heard Alexis, sounding stronger than before.
A feint? I felt a surge of relief.
Then she said the heaviest words I’d heard yet. “Goodbye, Blake.”
I found myself a distance away from the house. Every window that wasn’t broken was painted over. There weren’t any surfaces that remained.
I stood in a cold place without experiencing cold. My alien, bogeyman, vestige, something-Other body couldn’t process the emotions I felt, except as pain. I felt the branches and tattoos gain more ground, and it didn’t stop.
I was abandoning them.
Finally, the loss of my human body slowed.
My arms were more wood than anything resembling flesh, now. I could see through gaps between the branches at my wrists.
I felt lighter, stronger, and far more fragile.
“Evan!” I called out the name, at the top of my lungs.
I didn’t like how my voice sounded. I wanted to believe it was cracking with emotion, and not just cracking, like dead wood might do under stress.
The bird flew out a destroyed window at the side of the house.
I whistled.
He found me, descending.
“You didn’t come,” he said.
“I didn’t have the opportunity,” I said.
“Are the others okay?” he asked.
I wanted so much to lie to him, to lie to myself.
When my mouth opened, the words didn’t come.
I finally told him the truth. “No.”
I wasn’t sure how a bird without facial expressions could look devastated, but Evan managed it.
“They’re scared, they’re cornered, they’re hurt, and they don’t see many options.”
“Okay,” Evan said, his voice firm. “Let’s fix that.”
Let’s fix that.
I drew in a deep breath, to try and get centered again.
The air I drew in through my mouth just wheezed through the holes in my sides, a perpetual intake of breath, wind rustling through the branches, ruffling feathers. No maximum lung capacity, no minimum either.
“Let’s go,” I told him.
■
The various Behaim properties were locked up tight.
Johannes territory was verboten. Too dangerous to enter.
The Hospital, not that far from Johannes’ territory, was firmly warded.
Evan and I circled Sandra’s place.
“Dark,” I said.
“Damn,” Evan said. “I don’t see much. I don’t think she’s here. That troll’s a jerk, too. She’s tried to eat me five times, just while I’ve been flying around. She’d probably try to eat me now if she was around.”
“They anticipated retaliation,” I said.
“Maybe,” Evan replied. “That seems kind of cowardly.”
“It is,” I said, turning the idea over in my head. “The spirits like fairness.”
“Don’t we all?” Evan asked.
“No,” I said. “I think deep down inside, we all like things to be a little bit unfair in our favor.”
“Hm,” Evan said. “Like when I totally cheat at poker and cheese Ty off?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Like that.”
“Alexis cheats worse, you know.”
“Well,” I said. “I hope she finds a way to cheat her way through whatever’s happening in the house right now. If the witch hunters found a way into the room, that’s bad. If they didn’t, that’s less bad, but the clock is still ticking toward nightfall.”
“Uh huh,” Evan said. With far too much assurance, he said, “They’ll be okay.”
If they aren’t, it’s on Rose, I thought. She left. She gambled on this. She wanted the enemy to realize the dead man’s switch was still a problem, and to concede defeat to her.
She’d put Alexis, Tiff, and Ty on the line, just like the Drains had suggested in the vision.
I felt anger boil up, with too many targets to name. Where other emotions were muddled, anger was a crystal clear feeling inside me.
It’s on me, too, I thought. I brought them into this world.
If the anger had been a fire within me, the note of guilt made it a smoky, black, toxic sort of fire, not the type of fire one used to keep themselves warm.